37 Replies - 2224 Views - Last Post: 08 November 2012 - 08:37 AM

Pencil & Paper isn't good enough, we need it now.

Posted 06 November 2012 - 11:58 AM

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Normally I try to avoid political topics like the plague. Needless arguments & hurt feelings over views & beliefs with friends & loved ones, isn't my idea of a fun time. But this topic has me feeling the need to get involved, & interject my thoughts. But this isn't a political view point, but more like a view point on humanity, lazyness, & technology.

That's right, voter fraud by automation!

Years ago, right around the 2004 Florida vote debacle, I worked at Diebold. You remember that copy right? The one that made the voting machines? Well, my feelings then were the same as they are now. Automation & technology will lead to finger pointing, slip-ups, & the general inability to actually hold anyone accountable for the flow of data. Seriously, why can't we just write the shit down & count it? Because it takes forever, & our American lifestyle has us wanting instant results.

Well now we have our first (that I am aware of) actual technical glitch incident.

Really?

Question, how hard is it to write software to take a selection of a few simple options? Grade-schoolers can write this drivel in html.

Re: Pencil & Paper isn't good enough, we need it now.

Posted 06 November 2012 - 12:24 PM

The only way to be sure is to have everyone stand outside of the White House with rocks and then throw the rocks at whoever they are voting for. Whoever is left alive at the end of the day gets to be President.

Re: Pencil & Paper isn't good enough, we need it now.

computers haven't changed the fact that glitches occur both electronically and not.

Oh, I thought that was a list of former B9 hairstyles...

KBoogle, on 06 November 2012 - 02:24 PM, said:

The only way to be sure is to have everyone stand outside of the White House with rocks and then throw the rocks at whoever they are voting for. Whoever is left alive at the end of the day gets to be President.

There's something not quite right with that procedure. Can't put my finger on it...

Re: Pencil & Paper isn't good enough, we need it now.

Posted 06 November 2012 - 12:40 PM

I only have one hairstyle: human error is pretty accurate description.

And I believe the error with the stoning method of election is that they are throwing rocks at their candidate of choice. Yet the one who was pummeled the least stands victorious... thereby resulting in a reverse election where the loser wins and the winner dies. Kind of like the Hunger Games with politicians. At least, I'm assuming it's like the Hunger Games. I've never read it. I just know people die.

Re: Pencil & Paper isn't good enough, we need it now.

Question, how hard is it to write software to take a selection of a few simple options? Grade-schoolers can write this drivel in html.

Not hard at all, just like it's not hard to take those options and turn them into something completely different than what you chose, behind the scenes.
Begin TinFoilHat
So the machine I used to vote today had buttons that you pressed beside your choice. I'm sure that buttons identification was logged along with my intended answer. So when checked, a simple comparison that User pressed button ID 5 which was for this candidate and this candidate was indeed listed a vote. That's simple. But we as programmers know that a small bit of code can make those results anything we want them to be. Even an algorithm that only takes a percentage of those at random times and changes them could be introduced. It's just an invisible system to the user and therefore instills doubt that what they are choosing isn't being manipulated. Especially when there are already stories out there that this is all possible. To add to this, what is being used to tally each machine? Another bit of code that; even if the machines functioned and logged everything correctly, could still be programmed to manipulate the end result. It's all digital.
End TinFoilHat

Re: Pencil & Paper isn't good enough, we need it now.

Posted 07 November 2012 - 02:02 PM

BenignDesign, on 06 November 2012 - 12:40 PM, said:

I only have one hairstyle: human error is pretty accurate description.

And I believe the error with the stoning method of election is that they are throwing rocks at their candidate of choice. Yet the one who was pummeled the least stands victorious... thereby resulting in a reverse election where the loser wins and the winner dies. Kind of like the Hunger Games with politicians. At least, I'm assuming it's like the Hunger Games. I've never read it. I just know people die.

Well, on the upside, it would reduce the number of serious contestants.

I bet bamma and magic underwear wouldn't be running if they had to face America's stones of selection.

I wouldn't mind at all if NO ONE ran for anything and NO ONE voted for anyone.

That way the electronic voting machines could elect people that weren't running for office (or, preferably, that didn't even exist)and that no one voted for, and we could all live our lives without ever seeing, on tv, youtube, ads in various places, sidwalks, parks, etc, stupid ads about how one candidate thinks the other sucks, or hear their lies about how they're going to shit gold and implement free sexual favors for all, immortality, jobs for all, and how much they respect the American sheeple.. I mean people.. I mean subhuman trash, or wait, what? robots. That's what. Or maybe it's dumb animals. Yeah, that's the one.

Re: Pencil & Paper isn't good enough, we need it now.

Posted 07 November 2012 - 02:41 PM

I'm on the total other side of this and we've been using computers in the sense for over a hundred years now. Tabulating machines were all but invented to allow us to take the census in less than 10 years(A requirement of our constitution). There is also less error involved in computers and you can make people quadruple check their answer. As far as information flow is considered there answer is simple; you give each place you can vote at a hard drive and you treat that hard drive just like a box of ballots. There isn't a way to hack a device not connected to anything else and that only has an extremely limited set of inputs. Just as, if not more, secure, much less error prone, results come back in a timely fashion, that's all there is to it. In fact a record of all the votes could even be posted online, not as a 100% official copy, but so that everyone could see the exact results and even calculate it for themselves. political scientists for instances would love to use this(I believe they already do)